


Red and Fourth

by rm (arem)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:38:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arem/pseuds/rm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has a rebound relationship. Because Jack is a fuck-up it lasts for 45 years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red and Fourth

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kalichan and Tsarina for sitting through 800 different spellings of Lashansky and reassuring me I was on the right track.
> 
> This was written before Waters of Mars aired, which makes the century in question seem a little sketchy. I can give you a long, convoluted response as to why Doctor Who canon contradicts itself on the colonization on Mars or you can just ignore that and remind yourself that DW/TW/SJA arguably has no canon.

I.

Jack is two years out from Cardiff the first time he meets Martin Lashansky. It's the end of the 26th century, Jack has told linear time to go fuck itself, and they both just happen to be at a flash party at a Martian resort. Jack is looking for a distraction, but Lashansky can't be bothered to give him the time of day.

*

Martin Lashansky is 52-years-old. He was born on Earth and there learned Earth things. These include the impulse to leave. At thirty he settles, more or less, on Mars and starts a business all about what he's best at: fucking and being too compassionate for his own sorry good.

*

While Jack isn't used to being told no, a rejection is normally the sort of thing he's happy to let go. He does, in fact, that night, going home instead with a buxom girl named Katie. He tumbles her twice before rolling out of her bed and wandering colony halls until dawn. The parts of Mars that have yet to be terraformed are depressing as shit.

*

Once success comes, it doesn't take long for Lashansky to understand that with fame comes annoyance. Being good at what he does means attention, and attention means the demands of people who just don't get it.

Martin Lashansky does not run a brothel. He does not hire flesh out by the hour, and he does not instruct people on how to fuck.

What too many people lack the lexicon to understand is that Martin Lashansky is a matchmaker. He wonders, sometimes, if his grandmother would be proud.

*

Now, Jack Harkness is not a star-fucker, but he won't lie and say he doesn't like to bed the people other people fantasize about. But it's not an ego thing, not really. It's just that there's usually a pretty good reason why some people are the subject of so many different people's fantasies. Sure, they're not always great lays, but they're always interesting, and Jack, especially Jack trying to forget, loves the taste of that.

*

Lashansky is ridiculously selective about who he takes on and everybody knows it, which is why he's not going to waste his time with a perfect smile and a lousy come on.

Generally speaking, money is usually, but not always, a consideration; it weeds out the dilettantes, but someone interesting and pretty enough with a particular and obscure kink? Lashansky is happy to waive the fees on a find like that; it's a kindness, sure, but also an asset he knows someone will eventually pay double on.

*

Jack absolutely, positively cannot get the situation with (_okay, the brush off from_) Lashansky out of his mind. Fine, the guy doesn't want a quick grope with him at what was frankly a pretty boring fucking party anyway? Not a problem. Jack's got money and kinks to spare. Plus, the prospect (admittedly, all in his head) of seeing the guy's actual bed is kind of intriguing.

*

On weeks with second Tuesdays in the back half of long years – Mars has attempted to recreate the Earth calendar while also keeping itself compatible with the habits of Galactic Standard, and so intervals of artificial time loop within the reality of Martian days and years in a manner syncopated and peculiar – Martin Lashansky sees petitioners.

Sometimes, if he's feeling particularly bored and ludicrous he'll find whichever slave or servant is most terrified of him at the time and ask them to stand close, whispering in his ear _memento mori_. History really does have its charms, and after the house is cleared of strangers, he always beds his minder, simple and sweet. They are fond after and easier, and if there were anyone for him to swear it to, he would swear he never wanted a life so much about calculating kindnesses.

*

Lashansky's estate is way out on the southern edges of Mars Reformed. Jack takes the public transport to a stop an hour's walk from the man's front gates; a little exercise never hurt anyone.

The estate is lush, and Jack can't imagine there is any galaxy with enough whores to pay for so many fruiting plants on rock as barren as that of what many now call Red and Fourth, as if Mars were just a street corner in any Earth small town.

Jack waits on line three hours to talk to Lashansky and is told he's lucky the wait isn't longer. Jack thinks that remains to be seen.

*

Lashansky remembers the other man immediately. He has a face that looks purchased, but Lashansky can tell it isn't; it's too mobile and too sad.

"You're persistent," he tells Jack. "Now tell me you're not here for a hand job."

*

Jack Harkness laughs, sobers, and then introduces himself.

As Ianto Jones.

*

Martin Lashansky can't help but warm to a name like that.

"Earth family then?" he asks.

Jack nods. "People keep telling me it will come back in vogue eventually."

"Yeah," Lashansky says. "Not likely."

They laugh as equals. It's the last time for a long time.

*

Jack isn't sure why he does it. He isn't sure why he gives Ianto's name, other than it's been a long time since he's said it, and he always enjoyed saying it; and he isn't sure why he signs on to the contract, but a whole lot of sex and submission sounds like the best idea he's had in a while. Besides, it will keep him from having to find a new distraction every damn night. That, in particular, has been getting very boring.

*

Every submissive that winds up a part of Martin Lashansky's business is well-trained. He doesn't care what their experience is before arriving on his doorstep; he has standards, and they must be maintained.

He doesn't take people on who don't interest him, don't appeal to him, and who he doesn't believe he can make happy in some measure – both with himself and with whomever he places them with for however long.

Like the money, the willingness to start from zero is one of those things Lashansky demands as proof of sincerity. After all, he's inviting these people into his home, and it is a very expensive home indeed.

*

Jack is easy, as long as he's getting what he wants. What he's forgotten since he last seriously submitted to anyone on an ongoing basis (and it's been longer than Jack is prepared to tell _anyone_) is just how tedious an exercise the whole thing can be.

Boredom and isolation, of course, are part of the point. Jack understands this. He's trained all sorts of people to do all sorts of things, but he's here because he doesn't want to think about that anymore, which means the process isn't exactly helping.

II.

Ianto Jones, not his real name, is Martin Lashansky's problem child. He's not sure why or how he knows the man is lying about the name, but he's sure of it nonetheless, and instinct has always served him well.

The most obvious explanation, that his guest gambled that an old earth name would get his attention – _I mean, Lashansky, come on_ – feels wrong. Sure, Ianto's clever. But whatever this is, it isn't that.

Every day, Lashansky watches him struggle to submit. The man takes to sensation easily enough and seems truly pleased to make anyone feel good. Sucking or fucking, no problems there, and sure, the whole orgasm denial thing meets with the usual begging, pleading and wheedling, but even that's unremarkable.

It's just... well, Ianto Jones or whatever his name is never gets _lost_ in it.

And until he figures this out, Martin Lashansky is not going to be happy.

*

For Jack Harkness, the most remarkable pleasures of the Estate at the Edge of Mars Reformed (and he's named it that in his mind, with all proper capitalization, because he is _just_ that bored) are those of its gardens. He works in them several hours a day, every day, grateful that Lashansky somehow recognizes how ill-suited he is for any sort of non-sexual personal service. Of course, Jack realizes his assumptions may be faulty – perhaps his duties will change later or perhaps Lashansky is just more interested in generosity than use.

The gardens are the only time Jack really manages to talk to the other people staying at the house. Some don't want to speak – forbidden or not, he has no idea – but he's willing to respect people's private need for cloister, while others banter with him cheerfully about their pasts or their training or, even, just about the plants. That's easiest, Jack thinks, when they talk about the plants.

*

Lashansky visits his gardens often, as they exist to be admired as surely as they exist to be tended to and consumed. At bottom, most living things are basically the same, his own self, he knows, very much included.

Sometimes he sits down in the dirt and chats with his charges.

"Ianto Jones," he says on a seventh Sunday in a long month, "I simply don't understand you."

*

Okay, the name thing is totally weird and was maybe not the best idea Jack's ever had, but he's stuck with it in the here and now because he can not _imagine_ what Lashansky would do if he found out he's lied. It hurts, more than a little, when Lashansky uses both first and last and then Jack has to call him _sir._

"Sir. Any insights I can offer?" Jack says with false cheer, burying his pain in a battle with a particularly resilient weed. It amazes him the short number of years it took for there to be forms of life unwelcome here. Once, anything green would have been holy science. Lashansky's probably old enough to remember it even; Mars changed fast.

*

"Yeah," Lashansky says, pulling a ripened tomato from a vine and biting into it. "But I don't think speech is the way of it."

"What is then, sir?" Jack asks in easy habit.

"And there's the problem. I have absolutely no damn idea. You're a good gardener though, I'll say that much."

He watches Jack grit his teeth at all the things he doesn't offer. His charge wants his praise at least, and that's something.

*

Six weeks later on the first Monday in a false month towards the end of the back half, Lashansky calls Jack into his office.

Jack wriggles his toes against the cool tile of the floor and watches Lashansky sit back in his chair and fold his arms across his chest. 5'8" and sitting down shouldn't be that imposing, Jack thinks, but it is. Maybe a match has come up. Maybe Jack is about to be sent out on contract. He likes it here, but maybe a change of scenery will make the forgetting go better.

"This isn't working out," Lashansky says.

Jack feels cold. "Sir?"

"You. Whatever it is you need, I'm not figuring it out, which isn't serving you and therefore isn't serving me or my bottom line. It's only serving the tomatoes."

"Are you sending me away?" Jack asks, disturbed by the timbre of his voice. He sounds as if he hasn't spoken in week, although he feels nearly certain that cannot be true.

*

Martin Lashansky frowns. He's been planning to. And now, suddenly, he can't.

"Did I say that?"

"No," Jack says contritely and thinks bitterly that training in all things is so named because no matter how immune people can and should be to it, they never, ever are.

"But I'm no longer looking for placements for you. Something's broke you and I'm not dumping the problem on anyone else."

"Thank you, sir?" Jack offers, dubiously, but the fact is he's relieved.

"No. Don't thank me. You've just become my special project, and I'm not sure either of us are going to enjoy it."

III.

For one week, Jack sleeps each night in a cage in Martin Lashansky's bedroom, while the days of this week remain as before – sometimes he is paddled, sometimes he is fucked, sometimes he is to use his mouth on another _guest_ until they come whilst being subjected to one thing or another they had never thought they would enjoy.

Sometimes he is ignored.

And every day, Jack works in the gardens.

It is a Wednesday after supper, when Lashansky brings Jack the journal. Today he has been masturbating, but not to orgasm, over and over again. He is red and sore and needy and as humiliated as someone like Jack ever gets, and his frustration has almost brought him to the place Martin Lashansky still can't find for him.

The other man drops the book on the top of the enclosure.

Lashansky tells Jack that from now on he will be keeping a journal. Lashansky says he won't read it, won't keep it. Hell, he tells Jack he can burn the damn thing if he wants, but only after he's written it all down.

"All what?" Jack asks. Lashansky ignores the omitted _sir_.

It is, Jack thinks, a shared transgression, and he is pleased.

"I know Ianto Jones isn't your real name," Lashansky says.

Jack feels sick at the thought of confession.

"So I would like to know," Lashansky continues, "who he is."

Jack reaches up through the bars to tilt the book so that he can slip it through to himself. He clasps it to his bare chest and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. He doesn't want to do this, but then, he is arguably here for just that purpose.

"Then I'll need a pen, sir," he says. The _sir_ is the least he can do.

*

Once the man begins writing in the journal, Lashansky thinks the best thing he can do is leave him alone. He unlocks the cage with good mornings and tucks him back into it with a caresses of his hair goodnight, but he does not assign him any tasks, offer him any duties or attend in any way to his flesh.

On the fourth day, Ianto Jones (not his real name) comes to his office and stands (he should, Lashansky thinks with the utterly pained exhaustion of a man who has spent the morning doing his books, kneel) holding the journal out for him to to take.

"Are you done?" he asks. He half expects the man will want to leave now.

"Yes."

"I meant what I said. What do you want me to do with it?" he asks.

*

"You won't believe it when you read it," Jack says. "Although records from that period are largely digitized so you should be able to corroborate most of it, which doesn't mean I'm not suffering from some elaborate delusion. And believe me, I wish that were true."

Finally, _finally_, Lashansky takes the book from him.

Without a word, Jack turns and leaves the room.

Lashansky wonders where he will go, but when he retires that evening, he finds Jack Harkness – whose mother had named him Jast and who has acquired the unfortunate habit of stealing names from the dead – curled up in his cage, asleep.

Mystery solved, Martin Lashansky doesn't sleep.

In the morning, he unlocks the cage and offers his guest the book back.

"Stay here with us?"

Secret revealed, and without a name, the former Captain Jack Harkness can't image where else he would go.

IV.

The front of the year is the wintering season on Mars. To Jack, the cold is cruel, and he tells Lashansky that he misses the garden.

"I do too," Lashansky admits.

Jack takes to sleeping at the foot of Lashansky's bed, kissing the tops of his feet each night before sleep.

*

Martin Lashansky has seen a lot of things break a lot of people: pain, sex, affection. A story, though, that's something new, although he knows he shouldn't be surprised. He came to Mars because as a child he read books; he started a business because his grandmother had once told him stories.

Jack is so much easier now. He is healing. And Martin Lashansky fears he will not be able to keep him. Certainly, there is no longer any reason not to send him out on contracts, and doubly so, he imagines there is no reason for Jack to stay. Whatever the man came here for, by now it is surely lost or found.

But he is glad to have him as long as he'll stay. Jack seems to love all flesh and works miracles with the skittish. It would almost make him jealous, used as he is to being everyone's favorite by mere virtue of being host. But Jack's skill and kindness are good for business, and the man always defers to him precisely so as not to cause confusion. Lashansky appreciates that, but sometimes punishes him publicly anyway, lest anyone forget.

*

Jack hates it, crawling through the halls with a plug in his ass after Lashansky's paddled him nearly raw, but he loves it too when he comes back to himself later surrounded by exceptional bedding, the other man fisting his cock and murmuring praise.

After he comes, Martin removes the plug and presses his own cock into Jack, fucking him hard while Jack licks at the mess spread over the man's fingers. Later, Martin will spank him with his bare hand for not getting it all, and then Jack will sleep, hands cuffed together, in Martin Lashansky's arms.

V.

It takes the coming and going of three of the long years of Mars before Jack mentions Ianto in casual conversation. Sometimes, he'll note something the young man would have found funny or how much he would have enjoyed and been puzzled at seeing Jack in all these quiet house-bound ways. Martin listens quietly and wishes Jack had done this work of the heart when it might have mattered to two men, instead of one.

It is another of the long years before Jack mentions Stephen.

Martin Lashansky is 64-years-old and, for the first time in his life, is utterly and completely struck dumb.

*

As Martin gets older, Jack takes on more and more of whatever work his position in the house will allow. He doesn't really retire, of course; no one retires from a job like Martin's. But Jack takes over the books and sees to the various whims of the guest trainers Martin has the sense to invite, and he begins too to comb through the records of the business from before he ever encountered Martin Lashansky and his shock of grey hair at a flash party at a Martian resort.

Jack is no longer certain in what manner or language of time to count the years he has spent in the man's bed.

*

Martin Lashansky dies when he is 97-years-old, on the first Saturday in a short week of the high long month in the middle of the back half of the year. It's young for the 26th century, but not, Jack is given to understand, uncommon for a man born on one world and wed to another.

"We understand the body more now than it perhaps understands us, I'm afraid," the physician tells him.

*

Jack spends three hours delegating tasks (when in truth, it's what he's been doing for months, since Martin got sick), then packs his rucksack and slings it over his shoulder. He kisses Martin's forehead before he goes, leaves the journal the man had forced him to write amongst his papers, and then walks out as he first came, through the tall gardens where he twists two tomatoes from their stems, to the front gate, and down to the public transport station.

He doesn't board the transport, though, but keeps walking until a man his height, but thin and jangly falls into step beside him.

"Ready to go home?" the Doctor asks.

Jack smiles at him, sly and almost shy, and simply says, "Yes."


End file.
